The famed Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes took part in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 against the Ottomans. He was 24 old at the time. His bravery that day was especially impressive for he was ill but demanded to fight anyway. Cervantes served on the Spanish galley Marquesa which experienced fierce fighting. The captain put him and about dozen other soldiers on a ship's boat that was used in battle as a raised firing platform. There he was exposed to heavy Ottoman fire and was hit with three arquebus balls. One of these balls that hit him permanently damaged his left hand. While the hand did not have to be amputated he lost almost all use of it. Cervantes remained proud of the wounds he sustained for the rest of his life. Years later, he responded to a man who mocked him as old and maimed: "What I cannot help resenting is that he calls me old and one-handed, as if it had been in my power to stop time from passing over me, or as if my maiming had been born in some tavern brawl, and not in the highest occasion the past and present ages have seen, or future ones hope to see."
— Aristocratic Fury (@LandsknechtPike) October 7, 2026
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